The worst is yet to come - El Niño is preparing us for an extreme year in 2027
The worst is yet to come: Western Europe has just experienced its hottest June-July on record, with the continent forced to contend with drought, wildfires and increasingly dry lands. An El Niño is developing in the tropical Pacific, which is expected to strengthen further in the coming months. The two phenomena are not the same: the former is part of a long-term global warming trend, the latter represents a large natural fluctuation in the ocean-atmosphere system.
However, their overlap could make the transition between the second half of 2026 and 2027 particularly delicate. What made the summer exceptional was, above all, its continuity. The intense heat began in the second half of May and continued through repeated heat waves. Added to this were water shortages and fires.
This is where El Niño comes into play. This phenomenon consists of a periodic warming of the surface waters of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific and usually occurs every two to seven years. It changes the position of large tropical storm zones and, through atmospheric currents, can change the distribution of temperatures and precipitation in many parts of the planet. In itself, it is a natural phenomenon that is not caused by human-induced climate change in the industrial era. However, a strong El Niño that develops on an already unusually warm planet and oceans can temporarily add additional heat to the climate system.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) predicts that El Niño will continue to intensify between August and October and that the phenomenon will persist into the first months of 2027, with a high probability of above-normal temperatures over much of the planet. However, it is not possible to say at this time that the winter of 2026-2027 will necessarily be warmer, wetter or stormier simply because El Niño is so strong.
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